


Just Like Mother's

by thesalsagamer396



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Chicken Soup, Fluff, Gen, Genji Is A Good Bro, Intrusive Thoughts, adobo, hanzo is insecure, jesse is a sweetheart, litteraly made this at midnight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 06:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11225166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesalsagamer396/pseuds/thesalsagamer396
Summary: Hanzo has a late night ritual. He gets some unexpected visitors with insomnia.





	Just Like Mother's

Genji considered the kitchen in surprise. One thing he didn’t expect to see at midnight in Gibraltar was his older brother cooking. The smell was mouth-watering. Hanzo’s eyes were focused on the soup in the pot in front of him. He was watching the vegetables and chunks of meat swirl in the boiling broth as he slowly stirred the contents.

“ _Konichiwa, anija_ ,” Genji greeted in a cheerfully sleepy voice. His mask was off, so he could rub the tiredness out of his eyes. “What are you doing up in the middle of the night?”

Hanzo gave the cyborg a noncommittal grunt of acknowledgement. He just stared into the pot as if there were answers waiting to surface inside of it. His gaze was suggestive of deep thought.

“Oi, Hanzo.” The younger Shimada lightly tapped his brother’s arm. That seemed to get his attention.

“Oh…Genji…Did I wake you?”

“No no, I could not sleep. What are you up to?”

“…I am attempting to make mother’s chicken soup. You remember the way she used to make it? She would slave over the pot for hours until it was perfect. I…I have taken the habit of attempting to recreate it when I cannot sleep.”

Genji sniffed the steam emanating from the pot. “How is it coming along then?”

The elder Shimada sighed. He looked away in shame. “I bring dishonor to her memory every time I try to make her soup. It always comes out terrible. It tastes nothing like what she would make for us whenever we were sick.”

“Hanzo, I am sure that is not the case. Do not be so down on yourself.”

“Do not mock me, Genji…” Hanzo brought a lidle and filled it with broth and some vegetables and a chunk of chicken. He took a sip, making a face of disgust at the taste.

“Well?”

“…Something is missing, I know it! What could I possibly be missing?! I have tried everything, and I still do it wrong!”

“Well let me taste it, Hanzo.”

“No! It is not ready! It will not be ready until it tastes like mother’s! I…” Hanzo looked away again, going back to staring into the pot. “I could not bear to serve her soup if it was not perfect…It would bring the greatest dishonor to her memory.”

“Hanzo…” Genji smiled. He looked at his brother and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I am sure she would be honored to know that you loved her soup so much that you would attempt to make it yourself.”

“More like butcher it…”

“…It smells wonderful, by the way.”

“Not as wonderful as her’s, though…”

“If you say so. I am going for a walk around base. Save me some of that soup, would you?”

“If I do not scrap it.”

“Of course.”

With that, the cyborg walked out of the kitchen. Hanzo was once again left on his own.

 _It is better that way_ , he told himself.

He has been like this since joining the newly reformed Overwatch. His heart hung heavy every time he saw what happened to his brother. He felt like every agent stared at him, judging him. Plotting his death. Conspiring to get rid of him in a way that Genji would not suspect them.

His thoughts spiraled out of proportion. Outrageous notions entered his mind whenever his brother left him alone. Thoughts such as the enemy, possibly Talon, joining with the agents to be rid of the archer.

And Hanzo thought he would deserve it.

His guilt was far too strong. He felt like nothing he did would ever be right. His fight for redemption? Meaningless. His decision to join Overwatch? Worthless. His determination to be a better man? Useless. Nothing he did would ever make him worth living.

He couldn’t even get a simple soup right.

The Shimada could feel the disappointment from his father and the elders in for his inability to perform a task as simple as this.

**_You are a Shimada. And a Shimada performs everything he does with perfection and grace. Look at you. Bumbling around trying to fix something that was broken from the start. You are pathetic. A disgrace to the clan. I taught you better than failure._ **

_I am sorry, father. But, I am trying my best to—_

**_Shimadas do not try! They just do! Now stop with your tears! They have no place in this world._ **

_Of course, father. I will be better._

**_Anything is better than how you are right now. Right now, I am ashamed that you are my heir._ **

_I am sorry for disappointing you, father._

**_What would your mother say if she tasted this? She would be appalled with this mediocre performance! How dare you!_ **

_I am sorry! I am sorry, father! I am sorry for—_

“Well, now. Lookie what we got here. Fancy meeting you here at th’ licka midnight, Archer.”

His head snapped up at the doorway for the second time that night. Instead of his brother, that motley cowboy stood there. On his face was a pleasant and lazy smile on his hairy face. He was shirtless, but had the courtesy to wear pants. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he dragged his feet over to Hanzo and his pot of soup.

“McCree. Did I wake you?”

“Naw. But th’ smell was like a pretty lady pullin’ mah strings an’ beck’nin’ me to th’ kitchen. Y’Just can’t help but follow ‘er, y’know? Whatcha makin’, anyway?”

“I am…attempting to recreate my mother’s soup. It is a…poor attempt, though…”

“Lemme have a lil’ taste. I’m th’ judge a’ good soup ‘round here.”

Before Hanzo could stop him from tasting the chicken soup, Jesse already had the ladle up to his lips. A tentative sip is all he took.

And all of Hanzo’s panic returned at full force. He could hear his father berating him again. This time for letting a cowboy get close to his creation.

“Aw it ain’t that bad, sugah. Ah reckon Ah got just the thing to really make it shine.”

Jesse reached up and took a cylinder out of the cabinet above the stove. It looked like a large salt shaker, and it was labeled “Adobo”.

“Just a couple o’ pinches of this stuff, an’ ye got yerself a mean ol’ chicken soup. Trust lil’ ol’ Jesse.”

The fear in Hanzo’s veins increased tenfold as he watched Jesse stir the Adobo into the soup. It was completely ruined now. Everything would be all wrong.

_I am so sorry, mother! I have failed you! I am so sorry! I am so—_

“Here. Try it, sugah.”

The ladle was pressed to the Shimada’s lips. With little to no hope left for his mother’s soup, he reluctantly opened his mouth enough for the cowboy to pour the boiling broth onto his tongue, and it—

_Impossible…!_

Tears welled in his eyes and individually fell down his cheeks like a waterfall of mixed emotions. The amount he felt was overwhelming.

“H…How did…?”

“Nice, ain’t it? Mah mama always said there ain’t nothin’ Adobo can’t make bettah. God bless that woman, she was a saint an’ a genius.” He rambled, setting the stove to its lowest setting to keep the soup hot without it overcooking.

“It…It tastes…”

_It tastes just like mother’s soup…_

Despite himself, a smile crept its way onto his normally stoic face. The answer to the problem he was slaving over was right in front of him. This was Hana’s favorite thing to put in food. It was a mixed batch of spices and seasonings put into one container.

It was the same thing his mother used to make the chicken soup unlike any other.

“Too much? Er, maybe not enough? Does it need more?”

“No! No! It…It is perfect…Thank you, Jesse.”

_Thank you, Jesse._

Hanzo kept repeating it in his head, his tears flowing freely and happily as his smile was stained on his face. He wrapped his arms around the cowboy, his tears wetting the skin on the other’s shoulders.

_Thank you, Jesse._

“You alright there, Archer?” Jesse inquired, returning the embrace with no complaints.

“Yes…It is just…Perhaps our mothers thought alike, is all.”

_Thank you, Jesse._

The two of them stood there, Hanzo crying tears of joy onto Jesse’s bare shoulder. They were both unaware of the cyborg who watched through the doorway.

Genji had looked back when Jesse entered the kitchen. He had kept himself hidden so that they would not see him spying on them.

He had never seen his older brother cry tears of joy before. So, he himself smiled. His brother was finally coming out of the shell he designed for himself. A shell that had taken around 30 years to make. The clan had near-forbid Hanzo from expressing himself. To see him so exposed was truly the rarest of sights in his life.

Genji found himself thinking the exact same thoughts he brother was currently repeating to himself in silence.

_Thank you, Jesse._

**Author's Note:**

> This is an apology for not working on In The Pale Moonlight. Or the next fic in the Impossible Love series.


End file.
